Saturday,
March 10, 2 a.m., Dublin
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Saturdays
are a grind, a ton of pressure and phone calls and pushing to finish
things by noon or 2 or 3, and occasional frantic thoughts (Yikes!)
but sympathy would be wasted on me, it's what we're in this business
for, really, instead of being philosophers or poets. A productive
day, after being in the languors of despond all Thursday: got up
at 6, wrote a new Guy Noir script that was actually rather funny,
and a Ketchup (which we didn't use) and a Mournful Oatmeal and a
Rhubarb Pie, and wrote up some notes that my friends Jon and Marcia
made about Dublin and the churches and Jonathan Swift and the Vikings
and all, and decided to quote Yeats in the monologue, "Had
I the Embroidered Cloths of Heaven," and this all transpired
in about six hours. Deadlines certainly focus the mind. And most
of the time, this is what is needed. Someone puts a gun to your
head and says Dance and you dance.

Took a cab to the Vicar Street club and the cabdriver was a woman
in her late forties with a whole big monologue about the difficulties
of her trade. The club is small, seating about 600, very intimate,
and this is such a luxury for us, to be able to do the show to a
crowd that is Right There. It's half the size of the Fitzgerald
crowd and when you sit on the stool to do the News from Lake Wobegon,
it's like conversing with your friends over dinner. Frank Harte,
the singer, was tickled to be cast in the Guy Noir drama as a priest,
Father Paddy O'Furniture, and he did a credible job of it, and I
love his singing. He brought along Donal Lunny to play on a Sean
O'Casey song. Frank had told me he wanted to sing a ballad about
an execution, "The Night That Larry Stretched," but he
changed his mind: too long, too dark, he said. Our Irish actors
were terrific, Joe Taylor and Deirdre Monaghan. Joe starred in an
Irish radio production of Joyce's "Ulysses" in which he
played fifteen roles. The production lasted 29 hours, the longest
continuous radio broadcast in history. Deirdre works a lot in radio
and TV here. Both were great to work with. And the sisters who sang
in Irish ---- what a beautiful act. I could listen to this singing
all night. We closed the show with "The Parting Glass,"
which my friend Cathal McConnell sang to me after our last Dublin
show, sitting in a bar at 2 a.m.

After the show, Jon and Marcia and I walked back to the hotel,the
streets full of young people out for their Saturday night. I hardly
remember what it's like to be so young and to have such high hopes
for an evening. Landed in the Shelbourne lobby and found Scott Rivard
and Sam Hudson and Rich Dworsky sitting at a table and we joined
them for drinks. My three old stalwarts. The broadcast engineer
and the sound man and the piano player. Hard to imagine how we'd
operate without these gentlemen. So I bought the drinks. Pints of
Guinness and shots of Jameson's and raspberry juice for Rich, the
only upstanding one in the bunch.

Lovely, lovely, after the day's work and a good show. Of course
it could have been better, but never mind. Everyone got to say his
or her piece. I even snuck in a verse about my dad in "Lighthouse".
We sat up until 3 a.m., talking, and hit the sack.

Sunday, March 11, En Route to St. Paul
A porter bangs on my door, it's 6 a.m. and I was supposed to be
in the lobby at 5:45 to go to the airport. So I hustle around and
hurtle downstairs and jump in a taxi and get out there in plenty
of time. Check two bags through to Minneapolis and get on the plane
to London.

The great thing about staying up late the night before is that you
can sleep on the plane, even in tiny coach seats. I slept to London,
then boarded the Northwest flight, a DC-10, which was packed. I
sat in my tiny aisle seat, 16H, and felt the old claustrophobia
and nearby a child screeched and then the plane lifted off and I
eased the seat back and slept.

It was a good trip. I left the U.S. knowing that Dad was in bad
shape and he died Thursday but I know where he was and how he died
and who he was with and what was on his mind and it was all for
the best. And my wife and little girl had to cancel coming over,
but that was for the best too ---- to have a sick child in a strange
city is a horror. And someday we'll come back to Germany and Ireland
and do more shows. A person has all sorts of regrets in life but
you never regret the adventures, the foreign cities, the ambitious
trips.

And now this one is done. The taxi rolls up in front of our house
in St. Paul and a little girl and her mother stand bundled up in
the driveway, waiting for me. Good luck to all of you and try to
make peace with your fathers.

Lovingly selected from the earliest archives of A Prairie Home Companion, this heirloom collection represents the music from earliest years of the now legendary show: 1974–1976. With songs and tunes from jazz pianist Butch Thompson, mandolin maestro Peter Ostroushko, Dakota Dave Hull and the first house band, The Powdermilk Biscuit Band (Adam Granger, Bob Douglas and Mary DuShane).